


my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers.

by perfectlight



Series: what is unseen is eternal [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, one day I will write a thing that does not make me cry, the angst of all angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlight/pseuds/perfectlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor wanted to fall asleep with River in his arms and never wake up, and maybe, just maybe, he would have done enough good in his long, long life for his dreams to be of who she once had been.</p><p>It wasn't a plea he would even have granted himself; then again, nobody had ever hated the Doctor more than the Doctor could. Especially now, he knew. Especially now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hihoplastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hihoplastic/gifts).



> A companion piece to [wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/871254), which I highly recommend reading first, mainly because otherwise this story will make absolutely no sense.
> 
> I would like to apologise in advance for this fic.

_I have lost things you will never understand._

 

To save River, whose saving had meant the loss of her, was nothing the Doctor knew how to do. He grasped at thoughts through the blackness and knew nothing but the nothingness; there wasn’t anything that could be done to bring back what had been forgotten. And what had been forgotten was _River_. Her memory had faded into an echo in the Library, and when the Doctor brought that memory back into her body, it had been too late, much, much too late.

 

“It’s all right, my love,” River would tell him some nights when he cried and she didn’t ( _couldn’t_ ) understand why, but she still smoothed her hands over his cheeks and murmured platitudes in the darkness. “I’m right here.”

 

But she wasn’t, _she wasn’t there_ , and she didn’t even know, and all it served to do was deepen the fractures in the Doctor’s chest and twist and _twist_ at his hearts. The pain of it was physical, a constant stabbing and a neverending ache, that tore and throbbed at the Doctor’s body at all times; he didn’t know how he was going on, how he was even _alive_ , when all he wanted to do was hold River and wrap them all in golden light until there was nothing left. The Doctor wanted to fall asleep with River in his arms and never wake up, and maybe, just maybe, he would have done enough good in his long, long life for his dreams to be of who she once had been.

 

It wasn’t a plea he would even have granted himself; then again, nobody had ever hated the Doctor more than the Doctor could. Especially now, he knew. Especially now.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor had made a promise, long ago, on what felt like both the first and worst day of a life that still continued _on_ _no matter how much he wanted to end_ – he had promised something that now, alone beside the shell of his wife, made him want to fly apart at the edges and rain down across the universe, staining it with the colors of his _idiocy_ and _cowardice_ and _foolishness_ because he had promised, he’d _promised_ – 

 

_Not those times. Not one line_.

 

He could have fixed it, changed it, and _damn_ the fabric of reality, the Doctor didn’t care about it anymore. (It had been River who made him care, in the dark times.) But even the tiniest rewrites – visiting her past self and just _talking to her_ or sending a lonely little Melody gifts at Christmas or even watching Mels and the Ponds from the scanner on a cloaked TARDIS – had the greatest chances of destroying it all, shattering everything the Doctor had had with River into memories as faded as she was while time coiled and snapped and _changed_ and the Doctor knew he would feel every rewrite, every past, draped over him like a noose – he would _taste_ what he had ruined and in time, he would forget too, and the Doctor couldn’t risk that. He had always been a selfish, selfish old man, and the flame of that only grew and licked at his insides whenever he stared at the pale remnant of River Song. 

 

He would not destroy the little he had left of River Song.

 

* * *

 

And yet what if _what if_ ** _what if_** he could fix her, and in a terrible, dark, selfish moment of recklessness the Doctor landed the TARDIS for the first time in so, so long, in a room whiter than winter’s breath. 

 

Melody was not afraid of the box or the Doctor, but he hadn’t expected her to be. He took the sleepy culmination of the past of the only thing that mattered to him, and led her into the TARDIS.

 

The TARDIS was more than displeased at the paradox, she was _disappointed_ , and the hurt of it stung but was nothing compared to, well. Compared to. So when the Doctor pushed open the TARDIS doors to their bedroom where River was sleeping and Melody frowned, confused, he did not even say a word, because he deserved this. The old girl was not going to cooperate, was not even going to lead him to the console room, and it _hurt_ because River was the TARDIS’s before she was even the Doctor’s and yet the TARDIS would do nothing.

 

“Who’s th-th-that?” Melody asked, the words lost in a yawn. She thought she was dreaming, the Doctor could sense that much. (He wondered how often Melody, Mels, River, had dreamed of him. He wondered why he had never asked.)

 

“My wife.” _My everything. You_.

 

“She’s asleep,” said Melody softly, half asleep herself as she stared at the woman on the bed. Curly hair splayed over silken pillowcases; a face, pale, eyelashes still, as she dreamt of nothing, or perhaps the Library. It hardly mattered anymore. One hand pliant against the pillow, River’s gun hand.

 

“Yes,” the Doctor breathed, and he watched the paradox in front of him, past to future, present to present, feeling as though a desert was settling in his throat. “She does that.”

 

Melody tipped her head and the Doctor thought, _This is what I will do to you. This is what I’ve already done_.

 

He beckoned Melody away from her future with a smile that felt like connecting wires, like universes freezing, like creations burning. The Doctor brushed a kiss against Melody’s forehead and then, hands gentle against her temples, pulled away the memories of that night and tucked them carefully into his own mind, split between the corners of guilt and of treasure, before scooping Melody’s unconscious body ( _tiny, so tiny_ ) into his arms and carrying her out of the TARDIS and back to the white room. Melody slept, and when the Doctor blinked he could not tell who he held in his arms anymore: the first River he had ruined, or the last River he had lost. 

 

“I’m sorry,” whispered the Doctor, and the words were not enough; they never had been.

 

* * *

 

Too faint an echo, too vague a memory, to ever be River Song again. To ever be _his_.

 

_No time, no space,_ ** _just me_** , the Doctor had once screamed, and that was what this was, how this felt – only emptiness surrounding him, too empty to even be black, and yet he remained, _existed_ , in a torture beyond comprehension, in nothingness, even though his universe was gone. Seeing River in front of him and having her be _gone_ was worse, was so, so much worse than dying, than the end of the universe. He didn’t know how, but it was.

 

A lie, of course. He did know. He’d always known.

 

* * *

 

The answer comes to him when he remembers again what he told River on Trenzalore, so, _so_ long ago; only it is not an answer this time, but an end. A means to an end. And the Doctor is more certain than he has been in centuries that this is the right thing – because River is so close to gone now, and the Doctor no longer even knows what he is, but is aware it will never again be good, never again be a saver of worlds or a hero to any. 

 

The Doctor gathers the materials he needs, the fluid and the two syringes, and then, at the hum of the TARDIS (who will take care of them, the Doctor knows, and he _knows_ that trusting the old girl with this is the last and greatest gift he could give to her), takes River’s hand and kisses each finger before asking if she would like to see the stars again. 

 

River tips her head (just as Melody once did) and murmurs, “Why, sweetie? You’re right here.”

 

The Doctor folds her into an embrace because there, _there_ is the answer.

 

* * *

 

Before they go, he takes the TARDIS back to the white room, one final time, and tells Melody a story.

 

Crouched beneath the mobile, stars tinkling in the faint humid breeze, and he brushes the pale hair back from Melody’s forehead as he whispers. “You and me, we’re the last of the Time Lords,” the Doctor said softly. “The very, very last. And you, Melody Pond, you’re amazing. I suppose you’d say I was, too.” A pause. “Will say. But, dear, I need to tell you something I’ll tell you again a very, very long time from now.”

 

The Doctor leans in towards Melody’s ear and closes his eyes because this is finally the truth. “There is a time to live, and a time to sleep. And I think it’s time for the Time Lords to sleep, now.”

 

Melody stirs faintly and breathes against his cheek; it feels like a kiss, like a promise. The Doctor thinks of circles, and time, and how he loved for so, so long, and it is an ache so deep the universe cannot possibly hold it but love, _love_ , the Doctor knows, is not bound by time, not bound by space, not bound by failings, by broken promises, by memories lost. Love will last, even when they are gone.

 

The Doctor rests his forehead against Melody’s and knows there is nothing more that needs to be said. 

 

* * *

 

The sedative is painless for both of them, and when the Doctor lies down in their bed, holding River, he thinks that for the first time since he knew she was lost, he is glad. 

 

“Are you ready?” he says to her, very softly, as she twists slightly so they are nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye, together.

 

“Where are we going?” asks River quietly, tonelessly, but it’s all right, the Doctor thinks, and reaches up with one (ancient, slowly wearying, and finally becoming heavy with sleep) hand to bop her nose. 

 

The faintest of smiles pulls at the end of River’s mouth when he does and that, _that_ is a miracle unto itself.

 

The Doctor smiles back at her and feels weightless, as though he is floating, or flying, with River by his side. “We’re going to dream now,” he says, and River does not look afraid. 

 

There is peace in the very air they breathe.

 

“I love you,” the Doctor tells River.

 

“I love you,” River says, and no matter where, no matter how, it is the truth.

 

The words will last forever, even when they sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> It seems that the best angst ideas come to me at night. Earlier tonight (well, yesterday, I suppose) I was on AO3 while waiting for the parents of the sleeping kids I was babysitting to get home, and I saw a comment from [hihoplastic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hihoplastic) about writing a sequel to 'wandering stars,' from which my basic stream of consciousness ran something like: 'yes good sequel is good thing. but no happy ending. so everyone die.' 
> 
> I started writing this at about 11:58 PM after getting home and coffee. It is now 1:03 AM. 
> 
> The title is from Psalm 103, verse 3.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041439) by [whynothulk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whynothulk/pseuds/whynothulk)




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